Dr Mimi Zou

Fangda Career Development Fellow in Chinese Commercial Law

Department: Academic - Fellows & Lecturers

Interests:

My current research programmes focus on commercial law issues in the contexts of China’s digital economy and Chinese foreign investments (especially relating to the Belt and Road Initiative). My general research and teaching interests are in the areas of employment law, contract law, international economic law, comparative law and legal institutions.

Biography:

Mimi obtained her Doctor of Philosophy in Law and Bachelor of Civil Law degrees from the University of Oxford on a Commonwealth Scholarship. She also graduated with first class honours degrees in Law, Economics, and Social Sciences (University Medal) from the University of Sydney. Mimi is a qualified solicitor in England and Wales and lawyer in New South Wales (Australia).

Prior to her appointment at St Hugh’s College, Mimi was the R. Randle Edwards Fellow at Columbia Law School (2017), Assistant Professor of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2014-2017), Junior Dean at St John’s College, Oxford (2011-2014), Senior Researcher at Utrecht University (2010), and Senior Tutor at the University of Sydney Business School (2008-2009). She received the inaugural Innovation in Teaching Award from the Faulty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2015.

Mimi has also taught and researched at various leading Chinese institutions, including Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University School of Law and School of Economics and Management, China University of Political Science and Law, Zhejiang University, and Southwest University of Political Science and Law.

Mimi won the 2016 International Association of Labour Law Journals Marco Biagi Prize for Best Paper and was a finalist in the 2016 Taylor & Francis Commonwealth Scholar Best Journal Article Prize. She is an editor of the Business and Human Rights Journal and the Hong Kong Law Journal. Her research has been cited in an Australian appellate court and several parliamentary inquiries, and covered by international media outlets such as The New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, China Daily, and South China Morning Post.

She has worked in corporate law at King & Wood Mallesons and Linklaters in Sydney, Hong Kong, and London, as well as in a number of international organizations, government departments, and financial institutions in Asia-Pacific and Europe for over 15 years. In 2016, the Asia Society named Mimi as an ‘Asia 21 Young Leader’, which recognizes the accomplishments of rising change-makers in the region. She was a former finalist in the Young Australian of the Year Awards.